Peter Tonkin - The Joumal Of Edwin Underhill

[dem bones]

Peter Tonkin - The Joumal Of Edwin Underhill (Hodder & Stoughton, 1981)

Cover: Jefferson Godwin

Blurb

It all began on New Year's Eve, with a party at the Rectory, and an accident. Drunk and humiliated, schoolmaster Edwin Underhill stumbles through the local cemetery – a short-cut to his home – when the ground suddenly caves in beneath him and, falling into a pit, he impales his hand on a stake.

Underhill, described by his peers as a 'plain little man', now finds that his unprepossessing looks undergo a distinct transformation. He records in his journal the alarming changes that start to take place: his hair, tending to baldness, now becomes thick and healthy; his teeth sharpen; he finds he craves redder and rawer meat and, at the same time, he begins to avoid daylight and becomes a nocturnal wanderer. The woman on whom he has set his heart no longer shuns him but finds his change in appearance, and his mysterious air, strangely attractive. But along with these bodily changes comes a host of fantastical nightmares and new emotions which he cannot fully understand, far less control...

THE JOURNAL OF EDWIN UNDERHILL follows in the grand tradition of vampire stories from Bram Stoker's Dracula to the more recent Interview with the Vampire, but it differs subtly from its predecessors. In this contemporary tale, Tonkin looks inside the individual, to the innermost fears and feelings of a man undergoing a terrifying transformation.


Anne Rice and her legion disciples never quite succeeded in putting me off vampire novels for good though it was a close run thing, I can tell you. Every once in a while there'd be something that kept me going - John Steakley's Vampire$, Paul F. Olsen's Night Prophets, 'Arabella Randolph's incomparable The Vampire Tapes and this, Tonkin's brilliant merging of the ghost, vampire and demonic possession themes into one pacy 180 pager.

I just noticed to my horror that the blurb has done a soul-destroyingly thorough job of making my original review entirely redundant, so this time I'm afraid you'll have to wait until I've entirely rewritten it before you can wisely ignore my latest invaluable contribution to lit crit.

[Calenture]

admin said:

Anne Rice and her legion disciples never quite succeeded in putting me off vampire novels for good though it was a close run thing, I can tell you. Every once in a while there'd be something that kept me going...

The name Underhill makes me suspect that this one owes more to Kingsley Amis' The Green Man (1969) than Anne Rice

The revenant Dr Thomas Underhill in the Amis novel was a notorious 17th-century practitioner of black arts and sexual deviant suspected of two savage murders.

Brilliant book, though not really a vampire story.

Some lovely posts here today.

[dem bones]

Fortunately for us all, i forgot that i was devoting the rest of my life to writing my definitive review of this great vamp-ghost novel but I was delighted that Justin has mentioned a second Tonkin novel in Paperback Fanatic, a 'When Fish Attack' extravaganza at that! Needless to say, Killer (Signet, 1989) has gone straight-to-wants list.

Justin, if you're reading this. You forgot the incomparable Piranha!